Star Wars: X-Wing: Mercy Kill

The X-Wing series has been a series long beloved by Star Wars book fans.  Unlike many of the other stories, it barely features anyone from the movies and almost no use of the Force.  Before this most recent addition, the books came out over the course of three years over two different authors.  However, for more than a decade, the series laid fallow, until now...

Mercy Kill is the 10th book in a series where the 9th book came out in 1999.  It also serves as kind of an epilogue to a different 9 book series.  In other words, this book has a lot of history behind it.  Surprisingly, it doesn't really feel that way.  Despite being what is basically the 10th book in two separate series, it manages to stand on its own surprisingly well.  This book manages to require very little domain knowledge while avoiding the pitfall of explaining a bunch of previous plot points in a manner that is blatantly just filling new readers in.

Like many Aaron Allston books, this story, while being serious, has a multitude of humorous parts.  Some, especially those worked into the elaborate and stressful climax, provide such a perfect break, that they can have the reader howling with laughter. 

My biggest complaint with this book is that the title is not very accurate.  There is almost no space action in this book.  Almost everything occurs on foot.  There is not really a problem with this, I just feel that a book that has X-Wing in the title should have a little more action having to do with, well,  X-Wings.

The villain was physically not introduced until relatively late in the story but the author does a good job of making him seem like a bad guy without making him a caricature.  Just some of the little things he does really make it clear that the guy is not a paragon of virtue.

Overall, this book is surprisingly accessible and unsurprisingly funny.  I would give it a 91%.

The Mongoliad: Book 2

The second book of the Mongoliad is an interesting read.  It definitely continues the promise of the first book with vividly realized and described combat.  The historical era that the books cover is one that is rarely discussed in mainstream history, the point after Genghis Khan died but before the Mongol tribes splintered.  I like it for that reason too, the books make a rarely discussed era of history exciting.

Even though this is a collaborative work between many authors, it works very well.  It gives each character (or group thereof) their own unique feel without each section being jarringly different like some collaboration novels (I'm looking at you, Wild Cards).

I was totally understanding of the last novel ending on a cliffhanger, however, I was vastly less understanding of this one leaving that cliffhanger open for the first 80 pages.  Plus, I am sure that the storyline that took up most of those 80 pages will eventually tie into the ones introduced in the first book, but at the end of the second book it seems pretty mysterious how it is going to do so.

Since it had been a while since I had read Book 1, it was a little difficult to be sure that I was making all the connections I was supposed to be making.  The names are also not the type of names that are easy to remember and distinguish so that didn't exactly help.

Like in Book 1, the sword fighting was excellently written.  It was taken to a basically unique level of detail.  There was a little less of it in this book, but that is because the series is headed to (I believe) a big climax with much sword fighting and that takes some non-swordfighting plot bits to be set up.

After reading this I read a couple of short stories set in the Mongoliad universe before this main series.  They are short and don't cover what I want out of Mongoliad stories: swordfighting and cool insight into that era of history.  They are more character pieces, giving the reader a bit more insight into some of the characters.  I think together the two stories might come to 150 pages, so they are pretty short but fun little reads.

Overall, I would give this book an 88%.

This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It

This Book is Full of Spiders is the sequel to a book I like very much entitled John Dies at the End.  Before even talking about This Book is Full of Spiders, you have to know a little about John Dies at the End. John Dies at the End started off as a collection of stories about the narrator (David, the author) and his friend John.  These stories were compiled and condensed into one novel.  While it still retains hints of its origin, the compilation works much better than many I have seen.  The book is a mixture of humor and horror, with a tidbit of science fiction thrown in for good measure.  If you haven't guessed from the titles, the books are a strange mix of taking themselves seriously and not.  For a further example, here are the covers of both books:

As you can see, the covers are... unique.  The books have been described as if Douglas Adams wrote Stephen King and I think that is a perfect description.  There are multiple parts of the book that are significantly creepy but there were many parts that made me laugh out loud.

Some of the humor is juvenile (suggesting communicating with smeared feces) while there are parts that really make you think.  The books revolve partially around a worldwide conspiracy and while parts of it are clearly fictional, there are some parts that make you question the direction the world is headed in.

I have never seen humor and horror blended as artfully as it has been in these books.  If you are a fan of either genre I would recommend these books.  Fair warning, however, they do lean more towards the humor than the horror.



Overall, I would give this book (is full of spiders) a 93%.